ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—As recently as six months ago credit unions were wringing their hands over what to do about the Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, a payments channel being developed by merchants that will disintermediate CUs and other financial institutions from the payments process.
Credit unions had, and still have, reason to be worried, as the companies behind MCX are some of the biggest brands in the country. But now some believe MCX may be showing cracks and may even collapse.
“I think MCX has something on their hands that they are going to have to deal with,” said Tom Davis, chief technology officer with CSCU during the CUSO’s Solutions Conference here. “They are requiring exclusivity, but I don’t think this is going to last very long. Best Buy is already pulling out of their exclusivity contract, and they were a founding member of MCX. (Best Buy said it will begin accepting Apple Pay later this year). A lot of merchants saying I can’t play this game with you. More and more of that is happening, and they just got a new CEO this week. I think MCX is in trouble, and once they are in trouble they are going to have to go back and look at the way they are dealing with us, the payment industry. If Apple Pay starts to see volume increases, that data is going to start to be driven back (to FIs) and is going to have value.”